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A SERMON 

ON THE 

CAUSES MD USES OF THE PRESENT CIVIL WAR 

DELIVERED BY 

REV. J. R. HIBBARD, 

IN THE 

NEW JERUSALEM TEMPLE, CHICAGO, ILL., 

April 12th, 1862. 



b4SS 
.X 






A. SERMOlSr 

ON THE 

CAUSES AND USES OF THE PRESENT CIVIL WAR. 

FiEV. XXI — 5 
" And be that sat upon the throne, said : 
Behold, I make all things new." 

Within a short time past, events have transpii'ed, so important 
in their influence npon the present and prospective condition of 
our country, as to call forth from our Chief JMagistrate a proclam- 
ation recommending to the people of the United States, " at their 
next weekly assemblage after the proclamation shall have been 
received, to render thanks to our Heavenly Father, that it has 
pleased Him to award signal victories to our land and na\'al forces 
engaged in suppressing an internal rebellion, and at the same time 
to avert from our country the dangers of foreign intervention and 
invasion; and that they implore spirittial consolation in behalf of 
all those who have been brought into afliiction by the casualties 
and calamities of sedition and civil war, and that they reverently 
invoke the divine guidance for our national councils, that they 
may speedily result in the restoration of ])eace, harmony, and equi- 
ty throughout our borders, and hasten the establishment of frater- 
nal relations among the countries of the earth." 

Battles by sea and land have recently occured in which our 
forces have been signally victorious, and for which victories and 
the benefits to our country and the world, which, we trust, will 
follow them, we desire to " ofl'cr unto God thanksgiving." 

We are painfully aware that these victories and these hoped for 
benefits have been purchased at the price of much treasure, and 
the wounds and life-blood of a large number of our citizens, and 
with some of us of our near and dear personal friends and rela- 
tives. 

At least, one of my own personal and dear friends. Col. Can- 
field, of Ohio, was killed while leading his reginu'nt against the 
Rebels at Pittsburg. The fate of brothers, and cousins, and 
nephews, and other near friends engaged in the battle, is still in 
suspense. 

With some or many of you, it may be similar. And all, i'rom 
sympathy with each other and our common country, feel Avitli each 
other a common interest. 

And to-day we cannot, if we would, — and we feel no desire to, 
if we could, — so withdraw our minds from the political and social 
condition of our coimtry, that we can preach, or you with patience 
hear, a sermon on some abstract doctrine that bears little or no 
relation to the stirring events that so deeply move us. 



^:^^^ 



But while we cannot and would not withdraw our thoughts and 
feelings from all connection Avith passing events, we may, we be- 
lieve, take a Sabbath-day view of them. 

Through the week, our minds are occupied with their political 
and social aspect ; and we are anxiously observing their bearing 
upon the material interests of ourselves and others, and the civil ■ 
and social and moral prosperity of the nation, and Ave are feeling, 
thinking, talking and acting in regard to them on the plane of na- 
tural life, of week-day life. 

But there is a Sabbath-day side to them ; a side that looks to 
the spiritual world ; a side that looks upward towards the Lord ; 
a side to be viewed from above. 

During the week we are as it were living in the plains at the 
foot of the mountain. The clouds and tempest are over us, and 
the storm rages around us. We are enveloped in the haze and 
mist of natural thoughts and worldly passions. It is our privilege, 
and as far as possible our duty, upon the Sal:ibath, to go up the 
mountain ; to " ascend into the hill of the Lord," until we rise 
above the storm and tempest at its base ; to ascend from the state 
of worldly thought to a state of spiritual thought concerning those 
things that, through the week, have engaged our attention ; and 
from the elevation look down upon the upper surface of the storm. 
We should, upon the Sabbath, come up to the house of the Lord, 
not to discuss politics or civil affairs in the light of this world, but 
to look to and worship the Lord — to come into the light of heaven 
— to acquire the light of the Church ; and from this elevation, in 
this light, look down upon the upper surface of civil and political 
concerns. From the mountain top, in spiritual light, taking a Sab- 
bath survey of the fields below, we shall be able to descend into 
them again with a better knowledge of them and more ability wise- 
ly to discharge our duties in them than before. 

" Behold, I make all things new." These words are an index 
of the spiritual causes that for the last century have been pro- 
ducing most wonderful changes in the internal and external con- 
ditions of men. 

In the previous verses of this chapter, the Revelator says : " I 
saw a new heaven and a new earth ; for the former heaven and 
the former earth were passed away, and there was no more sea." 
"And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down 
from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her 
husband," "And I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying : Be- 
hold the tabernacle of God" is with men, and He will dwell with 
them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with 
them their God." 

" And God shall wi])e away all tears from their eyes ; and there 
shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall 
there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away." 
" And he that sat upon the throne, said : Behold, I make all things 
new." 

In the preceding chapter the Last Judgment is treated of; and 
in the verses preceding the text iu this chapter with the text 



itself, is clescribed the state of things tliat would follow the Last 
Judgment in the heavens and tliat would hogin and continue to 
follow upon the earth until finally accomjilished. 

In other words, it describes the state of Heaven and the Church 
after the Last Judgment, and the consequent state of the world 
as affected by them. 

From the beginning of the first Christian Church those who 
were interiorly and at the same time exteriorly good, as they 
passed into the spiritual world, Avere taken up into Heaven ; while 
those Avho were interiorly and at the same time exteriorly evil, 
were cast into hell. But as that Chuch increased, became exter- 
nal and corru])t, there came to be a class of persons who Avere 
externally religious but internally evil, Avho externally Avorshiped 
God, attended the Church, observed the sacraments, etc., but in 
their hearts made light of the Commandments, thought nothing 
of disobedience to them in secret, and Avere internally evil 
although externally good. They could not go to Heaven, for 
their evils Avould infest the angels. Nor need they, at once, be 
cast into hell, for they were externally good and could live in some 
kind of peace in society Avith the simple good in the Avorld of spirits. 
They Avere therefore permitted to remain in the Avorld of spirits, 
and there form societies and habitations, as it were Heaven, in 
Avhich they dAvelt. Being beloAV the Angelic Heaven and closely 
associated Avith the minds of men upon earth, the influence of the 
Lord and the angels, as it came down toAvards men, Avould be 
interrupted by them like the sunlight by dark clouds, or, as a 
message sent by an unfaithful or dishonest messenger, the angelic 
influence, on its way to man, Avould be perverted to agree Avith 
their own evil state. So that the Church and the world from 
their influence Avould become more coiTupt, and, reacting, 
such persons would become more numerous, until the light of 
Heaven Avould be almost entirely shut out from men, and the love 
of self and the lust of dominion, in connection Avith all false prin- 
ciples, agreeing Avith those loves, Avould universally prevail in the' 
Church, and consequently in the civil and social life of Christen- 
dom. This Avould go on until the Avorld would be in danger of 
being utterly desolated and the human race destroyed. When, 
to prcA^ent this, it Avould become necessary that a Judgment should' 
be executed upon the evil in the world of spirits, their evil states 
made manifest, and they be cast doAvn into hell. Their fictitious^ 
habitations, being hypocritical like themselv^es, or an effigy of. 
their oAvn state, Avould disappear. The Avorld of spirits, left un- 
d ' satiinnui ^ tiL i i by their presence and influence, Avould permit the light 
from Heaven to floAV more directly, and Avithout pervertion, into 
the minds of men. 

This CA^ent took place in the year 1757, and at the same time a 
new Heaven of true and genuine Christians, of those Avho, 
AA^hile in this Avorld and after they Avent out of this world, could 
acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as the God of Heaven and 
earth, and AAdio lived lives of love and charity to the neighbor, be- 
gan to be formed in the region Avhere the fictitious heavens of the 
internally evil had been. 



At the same time, also, the Lord revealed from his yord the 
doctrines which are tauoht, beheved and practiced by the angels 
of this heaven, to men ; ^and thus began to establish a new church 
on the earth, having the same doctrines of faith and life as_ the 
new heaven. Since then persons passing into the world ot spirits 
do not remain long there ; none more than twenty or thirty years 
few anything like so long. But the internally good are prepared 
, and pass up and find their place in the new heaven, while the 
internally evil pass doAvn into hell. , 

So that not being obstructed by the long-contmued presence ot 
the evil in the world of spirits, the light and mtluence of the new 
heaven can, and do, since then, flow more directly and powerluUy 
into the minds of men. And as the new heaven mcreases in 
numbers its inlluence increases upon the mmds ot men, and its 
principles of love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbor 
are more and more received and operative in the world. _ 

In the later a^es of the first Christian Church, Irom the intiu- 
ence of the hypocritical and evil in the world of spirits, ;faith 
alone or Z^cZif/ instead of a life of charity, was taught as a means 
of salvation, and its legitimate eftect upon society was the common 
feeling that a life of use, of charity, of labois was degrading; but 
alifeof faith, of belief that Christ suttered for them, and they 
need not work at all, was honorable. Hence the institutions and 
forms of society for the support of an aristocracy of idleness, ot 
o-entlemen of leisure, all over Christendom a hundred years ago. 
The Last Judgment removed the existing cause ot these lalse 
principles and parties in the world of spirits, while the formation 
of a new heaven and the revelation of its doctrines for the estab- 
lishment of a new church on the earth, gave rise to a new class 
of principles, to a new order of influx, to a new tram of thought 
and feeling concerning life, began indeed a new kmd ot common 
sense among men. the doctrine of charity, of use, ot salvation 
by the Lord only in the degree man keeps the Commandments, 
and in ceasing to do evil learns to do well, to be useful, to do 
> ■ something that in some way promotes the common good began 
'''" to be taiAit ; and the new influx of common sense, from the new 
.' heaven, rTgreeing with it, began to strengthen the new doctrine 
that charity, use, work, labor, was the crown of manhood. 

This new order of thought and element ot life, as loUowmg he 
I Last Judgment, began inl^57-weak at first, but continually be- 
^ comin<- sU-onger. All the false notions ot life, and evil forms of 
> society in accordance with them, were of course antagonistic to 
the new element that was forming itself from heavev^Uii^Uie 
minds of men. The effect of this conthiuedand increasing influx 
must tlierefbre of course be commotion, change, renovation, re- 
construction of the order of things in all departments, and m all 
the plains of Hfe, scientific, artistic, civil, social, and religious: 
the l)reaking up of the old, and hard, and false, and useless, and 
the formation and growth of the new, and living, and true, and 

"'In all divine creations " that is first which is natvu-al, afterwards 



that which is spiritual," wliether it be man as an individual, or a 
nation, or a church, or a heaven. 

The Lord formed the earth before he formed man upon it. 
And when he would form an angel he first forms the body of an 
infant, afterwards the rational and regenerate man, and finally the 
angel ; and in the regeneration of man the child first learns and 
understands natural truths, natural things, and afterwards rational, 
and finally spiritual things. The same law holds true in regard to 
the establishment, formation and growth of man as a church, as a 
dispensation, as a new order of human life on earth. That is, 
first which is natural ; that is, that which is first formed and 
appears natural, having witlun it the germ of what is spiritual, as 
the body of an infant is formed and has in it the germ of the 
spiritual man. The infliience of the nCw Hea^'en, fiowing down 
and pressing to be received, would manifest itself by its ettects 
through those faculties of the mind open to its reception. There 
Avould be first the lowest natural, the sensual, those relating to 
the. physical sciences and arts, and that have care for the })hysical 
and worldly comfort and ha]ipiness of man. The new life and 
light, flowing into these faculties, would break out in new dis- 
coveries in science, and new inventions in art, and these would 
follow each other in rapid succession as the new influence increased. 
The notions of science that before prevailed would be exploded 
or renovated, and }iew principles, founded on experience in the 
light of reason, would take their place. The arts for use especial- 
ly would leap with new life, and all this without reference to the 
quality of the higher plains in the minds of those through whom 
these new things in art and science came. 

And what has been the state of things in this respect since 
1757 ? The sciences and useful arts are since then almost a new 
creation. The steamboat, the railroad, the telegraph, the power 
press, the cotton gin, the sower and the reaper and the mower, 
improved machinery for spinning and Aveaving and knitting and 
sewing, and ten thousand other things, from the friction match 
that lights your fire to the subject sunlight that prints your por- 
trait, or the fire sped chariot that in a day sweeps you across a 
kingdom or a continent, all have come down and out of the new 
heaven since 1757 — and the day of making all things new has but 
just begun. 

The natural plane for man's physical comfort has just begun to 
be prepared for the coming forth and residence of the higher 
things of the New Jerusalem, the order of things which will 
surely follow. And through Avhat opposition and battling from 
the old have all these ucav things come ! IIow Fulton labored 
and struggled for long, Aveary years against the ignorance and pre- 
judice of old ideas ! And Morse the same. I Avell remember 
Avhen the jiroprietors of the old stage coaches opposed the rail- 
road, because it Avould not only destroy their business but destroy 
the farmers' business of raising horses, upon the supposition that 
there Avould be no use for them. And the cotton and Avoolcn 
factories and sewing machines Avere long and bitterly opposed 



lest they should starve the poor who spim and wove and sewed 
for their support. The old and useless m science and art, as in 
everything else, loves ease, hates change, dreads death, and bat- 
tles against the new till its last breath. Everything new, like a 
new birth, comes with struggling and pangs. 

After, and above the plane of science and art for the physical 
comfort of man, and the lowest basis of society and the church, 
comes the civil and social plane of life. Previous to 1757 the 
forms of the civil and social world in Christendom grew out of 
the doctrine of faith instead of charity, the lust of dominion 
instead of love ; out of the doctrine that idleness was genteel and 
honorable, and labor servile and degrading. And Cah'in taught 
that even the effort to do anything good was a sin. The spirit of 
the civil govermnent, as derived from the state of the church, was 
like its foundation. The idle few ruled, for their own aggrandize- 
ment, the many laborers. The Avorking men had no liberty to 
choose who should be the medium of law from God to them. 
They had no freedom to choose politically whether they Avould 
serve the Lord or Baal. A self-elected few claimed the divine 
birthright to rule the many ; and this with several of the nations 
had worked down so low that a part of the people were bought 
and sold like cattle. 

After the Last Judgment, when the spirit of the new Heaven, 
the spirit of use — of labor — of voluntarily and rationally doing 
sometliing iiseful, began to flow down and be perceived as the 
true index and measure of a man, the old spirit and eflSte forms 
of civil and social life began to feel and fear its influence. The 
civil plane of the minds of some were sufliciently open to per- 
ceive and receive something of true light in civil affairs, to re- 
ceive some light concerning a right order of civil government. 
In due time, through the civil plane of the !minds of the fathers 
of our country, there came forth the form of our Republican 
Government. 

We may, and I do believe that the idea of our government 
came forth from the Lord, by the descending influences of the new 
heaven, through the civil plane of the minds of our fathers, that 
it might be a new, free, civil government as a plane for the new 
and free Jerusalem Cluu'ch, without regard to the quality of the 
spiritual plane of tlu-ir minds; as the steand)oat came through the 
scientiflc })lane of the mind of Fulton, or the telegraph through that 
of Morse, without regard to^^the (piality of the higher degrees of 
their minds. 

Hut the IDEA of our ^government, begotten of the Lord by tlie 
influence of the new heaven flowing into tlie civil ])lane of the 
minds of ctur fathers, was not born without struggles and violence 
and bl 1. The old tyranies and aristocracies ojiposed and bat- 
tled against tlie growing sentiment of free government, and the 
dignity of useful laboi'. And in tlie throes of our revolution many 
of our fatliers laid down their lives. But a new nation — new in 
spirit, ibrm aiul life — was born from the struggle though baptized 
in their blood. 



Since 1757, the same spirit from the new heaven that gave rise 
to our government has been pressing down and striving to come 
forth in the old world. And what up-heavings and struggles have 
been produced by the eftbrt of the old tyranies to oppose its utter- 
ance ! Yet, every efibrt to hold it back breaks some bond ; every 
resistance loosens some fetter ; until to-day, in England, France, 
Germany, Italy, and even Russia, the laboring serf breathes more 
freely and feels himself, and is a hundred per cent more a man 
than he was a century ago. We believe and trust that in due 
time the new man of free, civil government, recognizing the life 
of charity, the dignity and honorableness of useful labor, will be 
born into active life in the kingdoms of the old world, while the 
encrusted and useless aristocracies of faith alone or the lust of do- 
minion pass away. But it can only be through rendings and 
trials and seas of blood. 

And even when a new nation is born from the descending influ- 
ences of the new heaven, it is like the individual infant, defiled 
with hereditary evil. A nation is but a larger man, and the laws 
that govern the birth, development, regeneration, and perfection 
of the one, govern, also, that of the other. 

Hereditary evU, by the mercy of the Lord, lies latent during the 
infant's early years, while remains of good and truth by various 
means are being implanted by the Lord, by which, in after life, he 
may be strengthened to resist and overcome his inborn evils when, 
excited by wicked spirits, they shall rise up to assault the spiritual 
life of the soul. And when in adult life hereditary evils, being ex- 
cited by evil spirits, assault the life of the soul, the man begins to 
find that the worst foes to his regeneration, to his peace, prosi)erity 
and eternal happiness are those of his own hoiisehold, those that 
were born with him, those that have grown up with and in him as 
a part of himself. And the most painful and hardest work he has 
to do is to " cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye " of 
those hereditary evils that, from childhood, he has seen and loved 
as a part of himself 

But his regeneration and salvation require their removal. And 
without it he cannot be saved. By the remams of good and truth 
stored up in him from infancy he stands firm against the assaults 
of his inward foes, overcomes, puts them down and away, and 
I'ises into a higher and purer atmosphere of life, and into a state of 
peace and blessedness superior to any he before enjoyed. 

Just so with a nation. Begotten by the influence of the new 
heaven, our nation as a nation, derived hereditary evil from our 
English mother. Declaring all men by nature to be " free and 
equal, " and having an equal and just " right to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness, " she retained the taint of the distinction 
of caste, of the degradation of labor. 

During the early years of our national life these hereditary 
taints, as in an infant, were latent and inactive, while divine 
mercy was busy with aU possible means to store the inner mind of 
the nation with remains of genuine civil and political good and 
truth ; instilling into the minds of her people more and more the 



8 

true and good principles of true civil life — of respect for man as 
man, and for his natural rights as an image of his Maker — of the 
duty of all to obey law, to observe order — and for the honorable- 
ness of active usefulness. By the means of tliese remains, im- 
planted in the interiors of our national mind continually by the 
various means provided by the Lord for her instructions, has the 
Lord provided a power to sustain the nation in her day of trial, 
when in her present more adult age, her hereditary evils have 
risen up seeking to destroy her national life. 

Our nation is no longer an infant. Hereditary evils at first and 
a long time measurably latent — unobserved-^have risen up in open 
rebellion, and seek by violence and war, supremacy or the de- 
struction of our national life. Our civil war is a conflict between 
the old and the new ; between the principles of free government, 
free institutions, the right of man to own himself and the honor- 
ableness of i;seful labor, flowing down from the new heaven, i;pon 
the one hand, and the principles of government by the aristocra- 
tic few, of slave institutions, of the right of some men to own 
other men, and that labor is degrading upon the other hand. 

These are the great principles from the new and the old, from 
above and below, that come out and meet in fierce and open con- 
flct in this civil war. The regeneration of the nation lies through 
the field of combat against the uprising of her hereditary evils. 

The worst enemies of our national peace, and national exaltation 
in true civil life, are those of our own household, the heredi- 
tary evils that have grown up with us, that we have loved as a 
part of ourselves. 

To combat and put these away is painful to our national feelings 
and the hardest thing for our nation to do. It requires the sacri- 
fice of much feeling, of much treasure, and the lives of many, 
very many of our citizens or relatives and friends and neighbors, 
and may require our own. But we, and they are but atoms in the 
national account, and may well esteem it honor if He Avho liolds 
the destiny of nations in his hands shall deem us worthy to lay 
our bodies as a ram2)art to protect from destruction the true prin- 
ciples of civil and ix'ligious freedom embodied in our national 
government, and water by our blood the tree of true civil life 
planted by the Lord on this continent, and cherislied by the influ- 
ences of tlie new heaven, until its roots shall draw nourishment 
from the oceans upon either coast, and its branches spread so 
Avide that their shadow shall protect from the sun of persecution 
the oppressed of every land, and the rich clusters of her fruits 
be plucked in peace and freely by the humblest citizen of the earth. 

"Let your heart, therefore, be ])erfect with the Lord our God, 
to walk in his statutes and keep bis commandments." 



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